My teenage son and I drew an archery hunt at Laguna Atascosa through TP&W for November 17-21. Has anyone been on this hunt before and have advice for us? My plan is to focus our efforts on his chances. Thank you in advance!

I went last December. I was in your same predicament. There isn't hardly any info on the web about the place. The locals have been hunting it for years and have done a fantastic job at keeping it quiet. The road on the way to the place was absolute garbage i mean it looks like it was used as a bombing range. Once there, the place is MASSIVE. If you have time to go about I would definitely take advantage of it just so you at least have an idea off what the place looks like. It's a refuge so there are animals everywhere some units hold more than others. Its hard to explain over this text with a cell phone. As mentioned earlier lots of walking so have a broke in pair of comfy snake boots. I had a fat tire bike that was useless after it rained because the sand caked up in every moving part. I was able to rattle in a few decent deer but want able to draw on them. The nilgai went nocturnal due to the pressure. Find fresh dung piles and tracks/ signs. Once you see it you'll understand what I'm talking about. Long story but I tracked a giant buck on day 5 just by following his tracks and it jumped out of the brush 10yards in front of me. I was not ready for it and well yeah I almost cried because of shear exhaustion. Not much sleep and long days. If you have a couple days to scout use one to just explore the refuge then one to learn a unit or two. You will learn soooo much on your hunt. I went alone and enjoyed every minute of it. I found a dead buck skull that was a 12 point that was 150+". I had close encounters with deer hogs and had a nilgai cow at 50 yards. If you have any questions let me know. I haven't really ever posted on 2cool but I'll check back here in the days to come.

I went last December. I was in your same predicament. There isn't hardly any info on the web about the place. The locals have been hunting it for years and have done a fantastic job at keeping it quiet. The road on the way to the place was absolute garbage i mean it looks like it was used as a bombing range. Once there, the place is MASSIVE. If you have time to go about I would definitely take advantage of it just so you at least have an idea off what the place looks like. It's a refuge so there are animals everywhere some units hold more than others. Its hard to explain over this text with a cell phone. As mentioned earlier lots of walking so have a broke in pair of comfy snake boots. I had a fat tire bike that was useless after it rained because the sand caked up in every moving part. I was able to rattle in a few decent deer but want able to draw on them. The nilgai went nocturnal due to the pressure. Find fresh dung piles and tracks/ signs. Once you see it you'll understand what I'm talking about. Long story but I tracked a giant buck on day 5 just by following his tracks and it jumped out of the brush 10yards in front of me. I was not ready for it and well yeah I almost cried because of shear exhaustion. Not much sleep and long days. If you have a couple days to scout use one to just explore the refuge then one to learn a unit or two. You will learn soooo much on your hunt. I went alone and enjoyed every minute of it. I found a dead buck skull that was a 12 point that was 150+". I had close encounters with deer hogs and had a nilgai cow at 50 yards. If you have any questions let me know. I haven't really ever posted on 2cool but I'll check back here in the days to come.

So you were not able to take any animals? Is it worth a 6 hr drive if you don't have the chance to scout before hand?